The One Thing You Cannot Do on a Mac
I have used and had Macintosh computers for ages.
Never really have much problems with them. There was one machine that was kind of flaky (G3), but most have been virtually flawless.
Everything I’ve needed to do I’ve been able to do just fine on a Mac.
However, I’ve discovered there is one thing you cannot do on a Mac, at least not reliably.
And that is to burn DVDs.
I burned my first DVD shortly after getting my MacBook Pro a couple years ago. Worked fine.
I’ve burned CDs on a regular basis. Continue to do so. No problems there!
But, then I start trying to archive my data to DVDs. No such luck. I don’t remember how many DVDs I wasted before throwing in the towel.
They all fail with the dreaded 0×8002006E error—a problem for which, judging by the support forums I have read, has no solution.
Changing burn speeds has no effect. Some recommend deleting the com.apple.finder.plist file to solve the problem. No such luck there either. Some have long lists of things to do, which are so ridiculously long and non-sensible, they might as well be considered computer voodoo.
Another recommendation was to try a different brand of DVD. Ironically, the recommended brand, Verbatim, is the one which I was using. (Which is also the brand of CDs I use, which burn without any problems.) So, I tried a house brand from a computer company I’ve purchased from and trust. They guarantee the DVDs will work.
I bought a ten-pack to try them out.
They burned fine. No problems.
Thinking my problems were solved, I bought a fifty-pack of the same brand.
So far, I’ve wasted 6 DVDs trying to burn the things. Each gets the 0×8002006E error.
Might as well have taken my money and burned it.
Yet another suggestion to resolve the problem is to free up hard drive space. Well, what the heck do you think I was trying to do by archiving files to DVD?
So, um, yeah. Macs are wonderful. Macs are great. Macs are largely trouble-free.
Just as long as you don’t need to burn a DVD.
Maybe I should look at getting an external Blu-ray drive.
I use external USB hard drives to backup my photos. Easier to use than burning DVD. Each hard drive is a mirror of the others so far as photo content.
I like to archive to non-magnetic media. I do keep a backup on an external drive, but I also archive files to CD and DVD. I have a lot of large files, so DVDs are more convenient than CDs. Then, I keep the CDs or DVDs in dark place where they won’t be as susceptible to fading.
My photos I keep backed up on a second computer, an external drive, a USB Flash drive and CDs. One of these days, I need to get them all output to hard copies as well.
I wonder why your 10 samples worked but the 50 pack didn’t? There must be some difference between them that causes the problem, right? Well, I will make sure the hubby doesn’t try to burn any dvds from his Mac. I still have a PC (for now).
What? Ive never had that problem! And I make SO MANY family movies [and take so many photos] I burn ALL of them to DVD’s. I wonder why the Ten Pack worked for you, but then you had troubles again. Thats SO weird!